


she led them in among the secret things

by Yatzuaka



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gender Neutral Loki, Other, post snap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yatzuaka/pseuds/Yatzuaka
Summary: A party at the end of the world
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Loki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	she led them in among the secret things

**Author's Note:**

> Just something weird I've been noodling on... since I forced myself to watch Infinity Wars.

They are quite certain that she's not the most beautiful thing they've ever seen, but there's something about her that draws the eye. They watch her from a distance, unable to pinpoint her appeal. Perhaps it's the white of her short, draped dress, glowing and incandescent in the blacklight. Maybe it's the elegant length of her exposed limbs, the way her curls trap and reflect a multitude of colors.

It's none of those things, it's all of those things, and yet -

She finishes dancing, and wends her way through the throngs of sweaty bodies crammed into this abandoned building. They track her movements until she disappears into the crowd, an odd indecision staying their feet from an instinctive need to follow her.

Swallowing the last of their water, they throw their whole body into the endless song. A sense of loss, of missed opportunities, suffuses them, and try as they might, they cannot dance it away. Thirst eventually drives them out from under the spinning lights, towards the darkened edges of the party, staggering against oblivious party-goers in search of more of the not-quite-right water being served.

The bass is an assault on their ears, pounding loud enough that it rattles the golden shards that dangle from their shirt. They feel like they generally prefer more ambiguity in their presentation, but a few bent shadows accentuate softer curves, enticing the bearded, greasy man selling the water to serve them next, regardless that they were at the end of the line. Height and beauty has its advantages. Handing over a shiny silver coin they don't remember the origins of, the man blinks burning yellow eyes at them slowly, gripping his long pole as he leans forward to accept the payment. 

Disgruntled grumbling was overpowered by the ceaseless beat, not that it would have bothered them had it been audible. Plastic crumples in their hand as they suck liquid down as quickly as possible, impossibly thirsty, and tosses the empty bottle in the corner with approximately a thousand others. There are no waste receptacles.

Her laugh slices through the din - a blade sweeping a perfect arc towards their jugular. There is no thought this time that can stop them from trying to find her, no trace of the previous hesitation. They find her leaving the bathroom, a faint twist to her full lips. They allow their bodies to collide as though by accident, and when she looks up into their face, they nearly gasp at the sudden lurch in their stomach. 

They haven't felt fear in such a long time, they're not certain if that's what is shivering their spine or if it's something akin to lust. They breathe deeply.

"Wow, you're blue!" she shouts, exaggerating her words, eyes widening with something they interpret as delight. She leans in close, "Your makeup is amazing. So real," a delicate hand lifts up as if to brush their face, and they long for contact, for a touch that doesn't come. "What are you supposed to be?"

They shrug a shoulder, an attempt at insouciance that they don't feel. "Beautiful."

She laughs, and for a moment there is nothing else.

"And you," they finally manage, after seconds tick by and her eyes have started to slide to the side, seeking... escape? "What are you supposed to be?"

"Don't you know?" she holds up a pair of shiny sheers that had been belted to her waist. They look real and wickedly sharp and they're not sure how they hadn't noticed them before. "Scissors? Generic Grecian Goddess costume?" she squints up at them, head tilted to the side. "That's ok. No one else has gotten it either." She adjusts her glasses, gives them a speculative look, "Do you want to dance? With me?"

They do not want to dance, at least not in the sense that she surely means, but they nod their ascent and allow themselves to be towed back to the dance floor. Others press close, but the way that her body aligns with theirs is so intriguing that they almost don't mind the crush.

"I don't know what it is," she shouts over the relentless pounding of the incessant music, "but I am so digging all the Technicolor makeup jobs! Wish -," the rest of her words are washed away by the driving of the beat, a peak the song is attempting to reach.

The crescendo never happens, and no one seems to notice. 

Everyone just keeps dancing.

There's no telling how long the pair dance among these many, the song seems both endless and too short. The DJ screams "Blake Bortles!" at some point, but other than that, time passes in haphazard flashes of magenta, green, blue and purple skin, ragged razor teeth, animal snarls and gap-toothed smiles, the glow of a draped dress and shine of machined parts, a kaleidoscope of life's infinite varieties.

"Gotta go!" she shouts suddenly, arching up against them to get her lips closer to their ear. "My break is over."

They are taken aback. Being with her is nothing like being alone in this crowd. It felt like knowing the way out. 

"I'll," they started, grabbing her hand, grasping at straws, "walk you there."

Her face crinkles up, a smile forming slowly on her full lips, "Ok."

She turns around and shrieks, "Oh my god, Jane!"

There's something familiar about this Jane. Especially the prop she carried. 

"I love your whole look!" Their dance partner says, sweeping her hands to encompass the red cape, the shiny, silver ciurass, the be-winged helmet, the hammer.

"Isn't it awesome?" the little blonde exclaims, swaying to the music, giving her helmet a little nudge upward, the hammer swinging on the leather strap on her fragile wrist. "Doesn't it look like, well. You know... I just picked it up. It's not. Not if. Hey," she swung the hammer around like it was made of plastic. Thunder boomed distantly, leaving them with a feeling like loss in their chest.

"It's time, Jane," she says almost sadly. 

"I know, Darcy. I'm ready," Jane answers, but she smiles an achingly beautiful smile without a trace of melancholy and follows her friend into the bathroom. 

They are thirsty again, and the women do not emerge for a very long time, so they leave their spot next to the bathroom. They are not curious about why no one comes out again. The crowds are thinning enough that the wait for water is short, and they do not feel the need to skip the line again. They have only one more coin, and the man snatches it from their hand with his grimy fingers, leaving them to shudder at the brief contact.

The water is cold and sweet, unlike the previous bottles, and this time they savor it. Their concerns, already so far away, disappear completely. They should wonder where the rest of the party goers went. They should wonder at the silence. 

They do not.

Darcy appears at his side, and looks up at him with liquid eyes. 

"It's time, isn't it?" they ask, because it's all clear now. 

"It sure is, Loki."

"Do we have time for one more dance?" they ask, glancing around the empty, silent space, which no longer seems quite so dingy. 

Darcy's smile could melt ice when she answers, "We have all the time in the world."

**Author's Note:**

> Brace yourself for this mass of notes:
> 
> Title from The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's Inferno: Canto III, though I changed the He to a she, and the me to a them.
> 
> I cast Charon, the guy who ferries people across the river Styx as the waterseller. He's also in the Divine Comedy, as well as the Aenid, and I drew from these sources for his descriptions.
> 
> Ok so yeah, I was extremely inspired by that the good place episode where Jason says Hell is like a Skrillex concert where the bass never drops. And yes, Jason's totally DJ'ing this purgatory party, too. Because that's how I roll.
> 
> If you're wondering, Darcy is dressed as Atropos, the Greek fate who cuts the thread of life, and determines when a person dies. With so much unscheduled death going around there's bound to be a bit of a backlog.
> 
> And, finally, Jane totally picks up Mjolnir, and the mantle of Thor, in the comics, so I imagine when she got to this party and saw it laying there next to the entrance, she picked it up. Mjolnir, of course, was destroyed during Ragnarok, and had just been sitting around waiting for someone worthy to pick it up and take it to the afterlife ever since.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, for reading :)


End file.
